Athanasius Search This Resource     in this Authorin this Sectionin all Sections   Navigator (Page 1 of 8) Previous Next   Page2   On the Incarnation of the Word §1. Introductory.-The Subject of This Treatise: the Humiliation and Incarnation of the Word. Presupposes the Doctrine of Creation, and that by the Word. The Father Has Saved the World by Him Through Whom He First Made It. Whereas in what precedes we hav drawn out-choosing a few points from among many-a sufficient account of the error of the heathen concerning idols, and of the worship of idols, and how they originally came to be invented; how, namely, out of wickedness men devised for themselves the worshipping of idols: and whereas we have by God's grace noted somewhat also of the divinity of the Word of the Father, and of His universal Providence and power, and that the Good Father through Him orders all things, and all things are moved by Him, and in Him are quickened: come now, Macarius(1) (worthy of that name), and true lover of Christ, let us follow up the faith of our religion(2) , and set forth also what relates to the Word's becoming Man, and to His divine Appearing amongst us, which Jews traduce and Greeks laugh to scorn, but we worship; in order that, all the more for the seeming low estate of the Word, your piety toward Him may be increased and multiplied. 2. For the more He is mocked among the unbelieving, the more witness does He give of His own Godhead; inasmuch as He not only Himself demonstrates as possible what then mistake, thinking impossible, but what men deride as unseemly, this by His own goodness He clothes with seemliness, and what men, in their conceit of wisdom, laugh at as merely human, He by His own power demonstrates to be divine, subduing the pretensions of idols by His supposed humiliation-by the Cross-and those who mock and disbelieve invisibly winning over to recognise His divinity and power. 3. But to treat this subject it is necessary to recall what has been previously said; in order that you may neither fail to know the cause of the bodily appearing of the Word of the Father, so high and so great, nor think it a consequence of His own nature that the Saviour has worn a body; but that being incorporeal by nature, and Word from the beginning, He has yet of the loving-kindness and goodness of His own Father been manifested to us in a human body for our salvation. 4. It is, then, proper for us to begin the treatment of this subject by speaking of the creation of the universe, and of God its Artificer, that so it may be duly perceived that the renewal of creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made it at the beginning. For it will appear not inconsonant for the Father to have wrought its salvation in Him by Whose means He made it. §2. Erroneous Views of Creation Rejected. (1) Epicurean (Fortuitous Generation). But Diversity of Bodies and Parts Argues a Creating Intellect. (2.) Platonists (Pre-Existent Matter.) But This Subjects God to Human Limitations, Making Him Not a Creator But a Mechanic. (3) Gnostics (an Alien Demiurge). Rejected from Scripture. Of the making of the universe and the creation of all things many have taken different views, and each man has laid down the law just as he pleased. For some say that all things have come into being of themselves, and in a chance fashion; as, for example, the Epicureans, who tell us in their self-contempt, that universal providence does not exist speaking right in the face of obvious fact and experience. 2. For if, as they say, everything has had its beginning of itself, and independently of purpose, it would follow that everything had come into(3) mere being, so as to be alike and not distinct. For it would follow in virtue of the unity of body that everything must be sun or moon, and in the case of men it would follow that the whole must be hand, or eye, or foot. But as it is this is not so. On the contrary, we see a distinction of sun, moon, and earth; and again, in the case of human bodies, of foot, hand, and head. Now, such separate arrangement as this tells us not of their having come into being of themselves, but shews that a cause preceded them; from which cause it is possible to apprehend God also as the Maker and Orderer of all. 3. But others, including Plato, who is in such repute among the Greeks, argue that God has made the world out of matter previously existing and without beginning. For God could have made nothing had not the material existed already; just as the wood must exist ready at hand for the carpenter, to enable him to work at all. 4. But in so saying they know not that they are investing God with weakness. For if He is not Himself the cause of the material, but makes things only of previously existing material, He proves to be weak, because unable to produce anything He makes without the material; just as it is without doubt a weakness of the carpenter not to be able to make anything required without his timber. For, ex hypothesi, had not the material existed, God would not have made anything. And how could He in that case be called Maker and Artificer, if He owes His ability to make to some other source-namely, to the material? So that if this be so, God will be on their theory a Mechanic only, and not a Creator out of nothing(4) ; if, that is, He works at existing material, but is not Himself the cause of the material. For He could not in any sense be called Creator unless He is Creator of the material of which the things created have in their turn been made. 5. But the sectaries imagine to themselves a different artificer of all things, other than the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in deep blindness even as to the words they use. 6. For whereas the Lord says to the Jews(5) : "Have ye not read that from the beginning He which created them made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall become one flesh?" and then, referring to the Creator, says, "What, therefore, God hath joined together let not man put asunder:" how come these men to assert that the creation is independent of the Father? Or if, in the words of John, who says, making no exception, "All things(6) were made by Him," and "without Him was not anything made," how could the artificer be another, distinct from the Father of Christ? §3. The True Doctrine. Creation Out of Nothing, of God's Lavish Bounty of Being. Man Created Above the Rest, But Incapable of Independent Perseverance. Hence the Exceptional and Supra-Natural Gift of Being in God's Image, with the Promise of Bliss Conditionally Upon His Perseverance in Grace. Thus do they vainly speculate. But the godly teaching and the faith according to Christ brands their foolish language as godlessness. For it knows that it was not spontaneously, because forethought is not absent; nor of existing matter, because God is not weak; but that out of nothing, and without its having any previous existence, God made the universe to exist through His word, as He says firstly through Moses: "In(7) the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" secondly, in the most edifying book of the Shepherd, "First(8) of all believe that God is one, which created and framed all things, and made them to exist out of nothing." 2. To which also Paul refers when he says, "By(9) faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the Word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear." 3. For God is good, or rather is essentially the source of goodness: nor(10) could one that is good be niggardly of anything: whence, grudging existence to none, He has made all things out of nothing by His own Word, Jesus Christ our Lord. And among these, having taken especial pity, above all things on earth, upon the race of men, and having perceived its inability, by virtue of the condition of its origin, to continue in one stay, He gave them a further gift, and He did not barely create man, as He did all the irrational creatures on the earth, but made them after His own image, giving them a portion even of the power of His own Word; so that having as it were a kind of reflexion of the Word, and being made rational, they might be able to abide ever in blessedness, living the true life which belongs to the saints in paradise. 4. But knowing once more how the will of man could sway to either side, in anticipation He secured the grace given them by a law and by the spot where He placed them. For He brought them into His own garden, and gave them a law: so that, if they kept the grace and remained good, they might still keep the life in paradise without sorrow or pain or care besides having the promise of incorruption in heaven; but that if they transgressed and turned back, and became evil, they might know that they were incurring that corruption in death which was theirs by nature: no longer to live in paradise, but cast out of it from that time forth to die and to abide in death and in corruption. 5. Now this is that of which Holy Writ also gives warning, saying in the Person of God: "Of every tree(11) that is in the garden, eating thou shalt eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it, but on the day that ye eat, dying ye shall die." But by "dying ye shall die," what else could be meant than not dying merely, but also abiding ever in the corruption of death? §4. Our Creation and God's Incarnation Most Intimately Connected. As by the Ward Man Was Called from Non-Existence into Being, and Further Received the Grace of a Divine Life, So by the One Fault Which Forfeited that Life They Again Incurred Corruption and Untold Sin and Misery Filled the World. You are wondering, perhaps, for what possible reason, having proposed to speak of the Incarnation of the Word, we are at present treating of the origin of mankind. But this, too, properly belongs to the aim of our treatise. 2. For in speaking of the appearance of the Saviour amongst us, we must needs speak also of the origin of men, that you may know that the reason of His coming down was because of us, and that our transgression(12) called forth the loving-kindness of the Word, that the Lord should both make haste to help us and appear among men. 3. For of His becoming Incarnate we were the object, and for our salvation He dealt so lovingly as to appear and be born even in a human body. 4. Thus, then, God has made man, and willed that he should abide in incorruption; but men, having despised and rejected the contemplation of God, and devised and contrived evil for themselves (as was said(13) in the former treatise), received the condemnation of death with which they had been threatened; and from thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but(14) were being corrupted according to their devices; and death had the mastery over them as king(15) . For transgression of the commandment was turning them back to their natural state, so that just as they have had their being out of nothing, so also, as might be expected, they might look for corruption into nothing in the course of time. 5. For if, out of a former normal state of nonexistence, they were called into being by the Presence and loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive their being from God who IS, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption. 6. For man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not; but by reason of his likeness to Him that is (and if he still preserved this likeness by keeping Him in his knowledge) he would stay his natural corruption, and remain incorrupt; as Wisdom(16) says: "The taking heed to His laws is the assurance of immortality;" but being incorrupt, he would live henceforth as God, to which I suppose the divine Scripture refers, when it says: "I have(17) said ye are gods, and ye are all sons of the most Highest; but ye die like men, and fall as one of the princes."§5. For God has not only made us out of nothing; but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having rejected things eternal, and, by counsel of the devil, turned to the things of corruption, became the cause(18) of their own corruption in death, being, as I said before, by nature corruptible, but destined, by the grace following from partaking of the Word, to have escaped their natural state, had they remained good. 2. For because of the Word dwelling with them, even their natural corruption did not come near them, as Wisdom also says(19) : "God made man for incorruption, and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death came into the world." But when this was come to pass, men began to die, while corruption thence-forward prevailed against them, gaining even more than its natural power over the whole race, inasmuch as it had, owing to the transgression of the commandment, the threat of the Deity as a further advantage against them. 3. For even in their misdeeds men had not stopped short at any set limits ; but gradually pressing forward, have passed on beyond all measure: having to begin with been inventors of wickedness and called down upon themselves death and corruption; while later on, having turned aside to wrong and exceeding all lawlessness, and stopping at no one evil but devising all manner of new evils in succession, they have become insatiable in sinning. 4. For there were adulteries everywhere and thefts, and the whole earth was full of murders and plunderings. And as to corruption and wrong, no heed was paid to law, but all crimes were being practised everywhere, both individually and jointly. Cities were at war with cities, and nations were rising up against nations; and the whole earth was rent with civil commotions and battles; each man vying with his fellows in lawless deeds. 8. Nor were even crimes against nature far from them, but, as the Apostle and witness of Christ says: "For their(20) women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the women, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." §6. The Human Race Then Was Wasting, God's Image Was Being Effaced, and His Work Ruined. Either, Then, God Must Forego His Spoken Word by Which Man Had Incurred Ruin; Or that Which Had Shared in the Being of the Word Must Sink Back Again into Destruction, in Which Case God's Design Would Be Defeated. What Then? Was God's Goodness to Suitor This? But If So, Why Had Man Been Made? It Could Have Been Weakness, Not Goodness on God's Part. For this cause, then, death having gained upon men, and corruption abiding upon them, the race of man was perishing; the rational man made in God's image was disappearing, and the handiwork of God was in process of dissolution. 2. For death, as I said above, gained from that time forth a legal(21) hold over us, and it was impossible to evade the law, since it had been laid down by God because(22) of the transgression, and the result was in truth at once monstrous and unseemly. 3. For it were monstrous, firstly, that God, having spoken, should prove false- that, when once He had ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the death, after the transgression man should not die, but God's word should be broken. For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die, man died not. 4. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward non-existence by the way of corruption(23) . 5. For it were not worthy of God's goodness that the things He had made should waste away, because of the deceit practised on men by the devil. 6. Especially it was unseemly to the last degree that God's handicraft among men should be done away, either because of their own carelessness, or because of the deceitfulness of evil spirits. 7. So, as the rational creatures were wasting and such works in course of ruin, what was God in His goodness to do? Suffer corruption to prevail against them and death to hold them fast? And where were the profit of their having been made, to begin with? For better were they not made, than once made, left to neglect and ruin. 8. For neglect reveals weakness, and not goodness on God's part-if, that is, He allows His own work to be ruined when once He had made it-more so than if He had never made man at all. 9. For if He had not made them, none could impute weakness; but once He had made them, and created them out of nothing, it were most monstrous for the work to be ruined, and that before the eyes of the Maker. 10. It was, then, out of the question to leave men to the current of corruption; because this would be unseemly, and unworthy of God's goodness. §7. On the Other Hand There Was the Consistency of God's Nature, Not to Be Sacrificed for Our Profit. Were Men, Then, to Be Called Upon to Repent? But Repentance Cannot Avert the Execution of a Law; Still Less Can It Remedy a Fallen Nature. We Have Incurred Corruption and Need to Be Restored to the Grace of God's Image. None Could Renew But He Who Had Created. He Alone Could (1) Recreate All, (2) Suffer for All, (3) Respect All to the Father. But just as this consequence must needs hold, so, too, on the other side the just claims(24) of God lie against it: that God should appear true to the law He had laid down concerning death. For it were monstrous for God, the Father of truth, to appear a liar for our profit and preservation. 2. So here, once more, what possible course was God to take? To demand repentance of men for their transgression? For this one might pronounce worthy of God; as though, just as from transgression men have become set towards corruption, so from repentance they may once more be set in the way of incorruption. 3. But repentance would, firstly, fail to guard the just claim(25) of God. For He would still be none the more true, if men did not remain in the grasp of death; nor, secondly, does repentance call men back from what is their nature-it merely stays them from acts of sin. 4. Now, if there were merely a misdemeanour in question, and not a consequent corruption, repentance were well enough. But if, when transgression had once gained a start, men became involved in that corruption which was their nature, and were deprived of the grace which they had, being in the image of God, what further step was needed? or what was required for such grace and such recall, but the Word of God, which had also at the beginning made everything out of nought? 5. For His it was once more both to bring the corruptible to incorruption, and to maintain intact the just claim(26) of the Father upon all. For being Word of the Father, and above all, He alone of natural fitness was both able to recreate everything, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be ambassador for all with the Father. §8. The Word, Then, Visited that Earth in Which He Was Yet Always Present ; And Saw All These Evils. He Takes a Body of Our Nature, and that of a Spotless Virgin, in Whose Womb He Makes It His Own, Wherein to Reveal Himself, Conquer Death, and Restore Life. FOOTNOTES: See Contra Gentes, i. The word (Makarie) may be an adjective only, but its occurrence in both places seems decisive. The name was very common (Apol. c. Ar. passim). `Macarius' was a Christian, as the present passage shews: he is presumed (c. Gent. i. 7) to have access to Scripture. thj eusebeiaj. See 1 Tim. iii, 16, and note 1 on De Decr. 1. Or, "been made in one way only." In the next clause I formerly translated the difficult words wj epi swmatoj enoj `as in the case of the universe;' but although the rendering has commended itself to others I now reluctantly admit that it puts too much into the Greek (in spite of §41.5). eij to einai. Matt. xix. 4, &c. John i. 3. Ge. i. 1. Herm. Mand. 1. Heb. xi. 3. c. Gent. xli. and Plato, Timoeus 29 E. Ge. ii. 16, sq. Cf. Orat. ii. 54, note 4. c. Gent. 3-5. Eccles. vii. 29; Rom. i. 21, Rom. i. 22. Ro. v. 14. Wisd. vi. 18. Ps. lxxxii. 6, sq. Cf. Concil. Araus. II. Can. 23. `Suam voluntatem homines faciunt, non Dei, quando id agunt quod Deo displicet.' Wisd. ii. 23, sq. Rom. i. 26, sq. Gen. ii. 15. Gal. iii. 19 (verbally only). Cf. Anselm cur Deus Homo, II. 4, `Valde alienum est ab eo, ut ullam rationalem naturam penitus perire sinat.' Literally "what is reasonable with respect to God," i.e. what is involved in His attributes and in His relation to us, cf. Rom. iii. 26, cf. Anselm, ib. I. 12, who slightly narrows down the idea or Athan. `Si peccatum sic dimittitur impunitum, similiter erit apud Deum peccanti et non peccanti, quod Deo non convenit .... Inconvenientia autem iniustitia est.' See previous note. See previous note.